Griggs courier., 1887-09-30
persuaded him to accept the ministrs-

persuaded him to accept the ministra-
tions of a medical man. It was ON the
sixty-first day of his fast that he was
first seen by DR.. william, whose report
of the case have followed. He was
then singularly (and yet perhaps not
so very singuarly) emaciated. His
abdomen was concave, his limbs so at
tenuated that the shape of the bones
could be clearly distinguished. His
cheek-bones stood out, giving his face
a ghastly appearance. He looked, in
fact, "like a skeleton prepared by dry
ing the muscles upon it in their natural
situation. His mind was imbecile-
that is to say, it was more obviously
imbecile than it had been before he
entered upon his fast or had made much
progress with it.
So far as can be judged. this young
man might have been saved if DR.. Will
Ian had followed a suitable method of
treatment. But he allowed his patient
to take much more food than was Judi
cious at such a time. Three pints of
food were administered daily-namely,
a pint of milk for breakfast, pint of
mutton broth boiled with barley for
dinner, and as much rice milk for sup
per,-from the third day after DR.. Will
Ian had seen the starved man. After
total abstinence from solid food for
sixty days, this allowance was altogeth-
er too great. One-third of it would
have been too much. Milk was also
quite unsuitable, being more difficult
of digestion by an enfeebled stomach
than even solid food Yet for the
first few days it seemed as though the
unfortunate man was recovering. He
regained flesh and strength, becoming
also cheerful, and his mind recovering
some degree of steadiness. On the
fifth day he showed signs of restless
ness. On the morning of the sixth he
lost all recollection, and before mid
night he was delirious and unmanage-
able. Hispulse increased in frequency,
his skin became hot and dry, and his
whole frame was shaken by constant
tremors. He remained in this state till
the eleventh day, emaciation increas-
ing and his pulse growing constantly
weaker and more rapid, until at last it
had been to one hundred and twenty
beats in the minute, On the eleventh
day, the seventy y-second from the COM
mencement of his self-imposed fast, the
poor fellow died, having by this time
fallen into state of utter prostration.
Nothing that Tanner, Succi or Mer-
latti has done in the way of fasting has
thrown SO much light on the power of
the human frame to resist the effects of
total abstinence from food as these two
cases. I set on one side for the mo-
ment the question whether Succi's herb
whatever it may be, is able to help the
body to resist the effects of fasting in
such degree that not only life but
health, strength and capacity for work
may remain. Considering only the re-
sistance opposed by simple vitality to
the effects of abstinence from food, we
have nothing to learn from fasts of
forty days or fifty days, or even from
fasts, if ever such should be undertaken,
for sixty days, or longer. The young
man who tasted sixty-one days and re-
mained alive, with fair chance of being
even restored to strength, if properly
treated, was simply the first-as he had
been thus far the only-man who has
ever tried the experiment of fasting
sixty days.-Richard a. Proctor, IN Chi-
cago Times.